How to measure "Health Care System Stress" with HARD DATA???

[ExtraSlow]

Hi, does anyone have a source of data or method for measuring how stressed the health care system is? Like actual hard data showing the impact on the Covid-19 virus on our health care system?

Is there a "vacancy rate" for intensive care beds? Is there a # of emergency admittance?
I've heard a million anecdotes, but I'm a data guy. Whatcha got?

[Xtrema]

https://www.albertahealthservices.ca...Page11908.aspx

I think Emergency wait time is the only real time stats. Everything is some sort of report.

[jutes]

https://www.worldometers.info/corona...ountry/canada/

Currently 120 in ICU's across Canada, hardly a stressed crisis.

Also heard in a news report yesterday that ambulance calls are down by 800 from this time last year, in New Brunswick alone. This only tells me one thing, people abuse the healthcare system on a regular day and Ambulances are Ubers to emergency for non-emergency calls. With people avoiding hospitals for fear of the Chinaflu, I would guess overall hospital vacancy for beds are up. Regular idiots who would normally go to ER for something minor are now staying home. Even if you are tested positive, you get sent home to recover unless you absolutely need care.

Current wait times in Sask and 'berta hospitals are 30min, which is very good.
https://www.saskatoonhealthregion.ca/waittimes; https://www.albertahealthservices.ca...waittimes.aspx

[pheoxs]

From yesterday (or the day before?) update they said they had 2200 beds ready across the province. Though that's ICU + Normal hospital beds.

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https://www.worldometers.info/corona...ountry/canada/

Currently 120 in ICU's across Canada, hardly a stressed crisis.

Also heard in a news report yesterday that ambulance calls are down by 800 from this time last year, in New Brunswick alone. This only tells me one thing, people abuse the healthcare system on a regular day and Ambulances are Ubers to emergency for non-emergency calls. With people avoiding hospitals for fear of the Chinaflu, I would guess overall hospital vacancy for beds are up. Regular idiots who would normally go to ER for something minor are now staying home. Even if you are tested positive, you get sent home to recover unless you absolutely need care.

Current wait times in Sask and 'berta hospitals are 30min, which is very good.
https://www.saskatoonhealthregion.ca/waittimes; https://www.albertahealthservices.ca...waittimes.aspx

Keep in mind people are less likely to hurt themselves when they just stay home. Less drunk people getting hurt, less kids outside doing stupid things, less car crashes on the roads, etc. It's not necessarily just signs that people abuse the system.

Vehicle accidents alone are probably way down.

[Xtrema]

Emergency room avoidance under pandemic shows you how many people doesn't really need to be at Emergency at all.

As for ICU stats, we are not at peak infection yet and if everyone isolates, there is probably a hope that we won't hit peak.

Have a read:
https://criticalcarecanada.com/prese...adequately.pdf

TLDR, AB and BC lacks ICU capacity compared to US or other G7 countries.

[HuMz]

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https://www.worldometers.info/corona...ountry/canada/

Currently 120 in ICU's across Canada, hardly a stressed crisis.

Also heard in a news report yesterday that ambulance calls are down by 800 from this time last year, in New Brunswick alone. This only tells me one thing, people abuse the healthcare system on a regular day and Ambulances are Ubers to emergency for non-emergency calls. With people avoiding hospitals for fear of the Chinaflu, I would guess overall hospital vacancy for beds are up. Regular idiots who would normally go to ER for something minor are now staying home. Even if you are tested positive, you get sent home to recover unless you absolutely need care.

Current wait times in Sask and 'berta hospitals are 30min, which is very good.
https://www.saskatoonhealthregion.ca/waittimes; https://www.albertahealthservices.ca...waittimes.aspx

Ontario has more than that in the ICU alone, 3 times that amount if you included suspected cases (waiting results). Worldmeter doesn't do a great job of tracking serious cases, they use sporadic links. And when countries don't report national data on cases in the ICU, they aren't able to accurately track that. You basically have to dig through each provinces numbers to find out.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...cted-1.5514041

[ExtraSlow]

The EMS performance dashboard is going to be good data, but unfortunately, it's a very long lag time. Currently only reporting up to Q4 2019.
I guess Emergency room wait times are the only "live" data.

[TheGeneral]

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Vehicle accidents alone are probably way down.

So we can expect car insurance to come down???! HA. But even if they did, they would probably hike home insurance to make up for it.
I wonder... Are most home claims related to persons being active within the house (cooking and electrical usage leading to fires, etc) or when they are NOT around to react to/prevent an occurrence?

I already took my car ins off weeks ago thankfully.

Sorry for possible derail.

[Tik-Tok]

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I guess Emergency room wait times are the only "live" data.

It's not even good data though. Like on Google maps where it shows Costco as the least busy ever, but then you drive by and see 100 people in line waiting to get in.

[JRSC00LUDE]

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https://www.worldometers.info/corona...ountry/canada/

Currently 120 in ICU's across Canada, hardly a stressed crisis.

Also heard in a news report yesterday that ambulance calls are down by 800 from this time last year, in New Brunswick alone. This only tells me one thing, people abuse the healthcare system on a regular day and Ambulances are Ubers to emergency for non-emergency calls. With people avoiding hospitals for fear of the Chinaflu, I would guess overall hospital vacancy for beds are up. Regular idiots who would normally go to ER for something minor are now staying home. Even if you are tested positive, you get sent home to recover unless you absolutely need care.

Current wait times in Sask and 'berta hospitals are 30min, which is very good.
https://www.saskatoonhealthregion.ca/waittimes; https://www.albertahealthservices.ca...waittimes.aspx

The hospitals have cancelled pretty much everything and the wards are ghost towns right now so these aren't sustainable or realistic numbers I wouldn't think. Two direct contacts of mine are ICU RN's and for the first time in their careers they basically have nothing to do. Yes the serial abusers aren't there but neither are a lot of people right now by intentional, yet short-term, design.

[xrayvsn]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...ions-1.5514947

I have this page bookmarked for the specific Alberta content, including hospital and ICU admissions, and age demographics.

[Xtrema]

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Currently 120 in ICU's across Canada, hardly a stressed crisis.

If that UA powerpoint is to be believe have about about 400 ICU beds in AB. And I assume not all are being used by COVID patients.

But if that COVID ICU number start to creep up, you at least know where the stress point is. And as bad as this sounds, more/quicker deaths will free up more beds.

[r3ccOs]

What I really want to know is this -- What does early testing provide? They are attributing high mortality to not "enough" testing, which I understand for containment of spread.

Boris Johnson and Prince Charles (71) - are "fully recovered' as are Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and the Sofie, the PM's wife - What are the different protocols followed if most people are told to stay home and isolate if they have Covid?(https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/healt...ath/index.html)

I highly doubt that if you are early into infection they would bother with intubation immediately? there must obviously be some battery of anti-virals that are given proactively to boost immunity and prevention of autoimmune reaction -> pneumonia?

https://www.healthline.com/health/co...ent#prevention

are any of these protocols as to the reasons?

[Swank]

My wife said up until now in 9 years she has never seen her hospital have a lower bed occupancy than 102%, on her last shift it was 72%. I don't remember where she gets the data but some sort of internal system if I remember correctly. She did speculate that cancellation of elective surgeries is partly the reason for the drop. I know, not HARD DATA, but interesting to me at least.

[sneek]

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My wife said up until now in 9 years she has never seen her hospital have a lower bed occupancy than 102%, on her last shift it was 72%. I don't remember where she gets the data but some sort of internal system if I remember correctly. She did speculate that cancellation of elective surgeries is partly the reason for the drop. I know, not HARD DATA, but interesting to me at least.

This is the exact number for bed occupancy in one of our major Calgary hospitals.

The number is intentionally low to prepare for an uptick in cases coming in. Cancellation of surgeries also bumped the number down but they are also transfering out to other units/ facilities that previously were not used as an inpatient unit. Also some rooms will need to be closed off so they can be converted into pandemic mode to handle 2 patients.